The third season of Pioneers of Television kicks off tonight on PBS at 8PM with the first of four new hour-long episodes. Check your local listings to see if a PBS affiliate in your area is carrying the show at 8PM or at some other time tonight or tomorrow. Tonight’s installment is “Funny Ladies” rather than the originally scheduled “Primetime Soaps” which will air next week. Here are the episode descriptions again for the third season:

FUNNY LADIES
Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET
This episode begins with the first standup comediennes to appear on television, including Joan Rivers and the late Phyllis Diller–whose final interview was for this episode. “Funny Ladies” also looks at Lucille Ball’s breakthrough on “I Love Lucy” and the sitcom stars who followed, including Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White and Marla Gibbs. And televisionâ€™s most beloved variety star Carol Burnett, reveals the behind-the-scenes stories of her long running show. The episode also includes interviews with contemporary actresses Tina Fey and Margaret Cho.

PRIMETIME SOAPS
Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET
“Dallas” and “Dynasty” kicked off the nighttime soap frenzy in the late 1970s, a phenomenon that continued through the last season of “Knots Landing” in 1993. The episode offers surprising new details about the legendary “Who Shot J.R.” episode of Dallas, and reveals the backstage personalities that shaped “Dynasty” and “Knots Landing.” Interviewees in this episode include Larry Hagman, Joan Collins, Linda Evans, Diahann Carroll, Linda Gray, Patrick Duffy, Michele Lee, Joan Van Ark and Donna Mills.
SUPERHEROES
Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET
“Superheroes” crosses many eras: “Superman” in the 1950s, “Batman” in the ’60s, “Wonder Woman” and “The Incredible Hulk” in the ’70s and “The Greatest American Hero” in the ’80s. The episode features in-depth interviews with Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Lynda Carter, Lou Ferrigno, William Katt and others. It also includes comments from Robert Culp about his show “The Greatest American Hero,” recorded just days before he passed away.
MINISERIES
Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET
Miniseries still rank among the top-rated programs in television history. “Roots” was the biggest — interviewees about that groundbreaking series include stars LeVar Burton, Louis Gossett Jr., Leslie Uggams, Ben Vereen, John Amos, Georg Stanford Brown and Ed Asner. This episode also considers the very first miniseries, “Rich Man, Poor Man” as stars Peter Strauss and Susan Blakely offer fresh insights. All of the key stars from the landmark miniseries “The Thorn Birds” (the most-watched romance) provide surprising commentary about the romance seen by more viewers than any other in TV history. These new interviews with Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown mark the 30th anniversary of one of television’s biggest events.

The official PBS website for Pioneers of Television can be found here.

2 Comments

I hope they get the facts right this time as opposed to last time’s TV detective where they made such major mistakes as to say Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) was the first woman to star in a TV series featuring a woman police detective. Both Beverly Garland (Decoy) and Teresa Graves (Get Christie Love) did it before.

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